NYT: Menendez needs to step down from chairmanship while ethics probe proceeds

posted at 2:31 pm on February 9, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

Say, remember when Bob Menendez’ problems were just the ravings of “right-wing blogs” that Harry Reid said couldn’t be trusted as sources? Good times, good times. The stink has gotten bad enough from the revelations of interventions staged by Menendez on behalf of contributor-crony Salomon Melgen that a newspaper has called for Reid to sideline Menendez on the Foreign Relations Committee. And not just a right-wing-bloggish kind of newspaper, either, but the New York Times.

In fact, they make it pretty clear that they don’t like Menendez much at all anyway:

Senator Robert Menendez was never a distinguished choice for chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the position he ascended to this month by virtue of seniority. Concerns about that quality gap have sharply escalated amid new disclosures about Mr. Menendez’s use of his position to advance the financial interests of a friend and big donor. Instead of trying to protect Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, needs to remove his gavel, at least pending credible resolution by the Senate Ethics Committee of the swirling accusations of misconduct.

In case you’re wondering, the Gray Lady never mentions the allegations of engaging prostitutes on his trips to the Dominican Republic with Melgen. Instead, they’re more focused on the allegations that Menendez prostituted his office:

At issue are the curious dealings between Mr. Menendez and his close friend and benefactor Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye surgeon and major Democratic donor. The senator’s efforts to help Dr. Melgen, part-owner of a firm that had a long-dormant contract with the Dominican Republic to provide port security, revive that lucrative contract — deemed an exorbitant giveaway by business leaders and government officials there — were detailed in an article in The Times last week by Raymond Hernandez and Frances Robles. The contract’s dubious legitimacy and Dr. Melgen’s lack of experience in border security issues did not deter Mr. Menendez from pressing State and Commerce Department officials to insist that the contract be honored, including at a hearing in July of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee over which he presided. …

Mr. Menendez’s interventions on Dr. Melgen’s behalf were not limited to port security. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Mr. Menendez personally raised concerns with top federal health officials in 2009 and again in 2012 about the fairness of their finding that Dr. Melgen had overbilled the government $8.9 million for care provided at his eye clinic. The Post also reported that Dr. Melgen invoked the senator’s name repeatedly to exert pressure on federal fraud investigators.

Interestingly, the Times also calls out Reid, or at least a super-PAC started by his former aides:

Compounding the unseemliness, Senator Menendez’s help came as Dr. Melgen was in the process of making donations totaling $700,000 to Majority PAC, a Democratic “super PAC” set up by former aides to Mr. Reid. Majority PAC ended up shoveling $582,500 to Mr. Menendez’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Hmmm. That sounds a bit like a shot across Reid’s bow. Will Reid consider this source a little more carefully? When you’ve lost the New York Times ….

Blowback

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There will be no fight. Either Menendez will temporarily step down and wait until the investigation and the scandal come to its natural death by strangulation, or get pushed out completely to let Cory Booker run without having to muscle Lautenberg’s mummy out.

a limited hangout. Menendez will be rehabilitated in typical MSM fashion soon as the Democratico-liberal-MSM-entertainment industry will envelop him and he shall emerge faster, richer, stronger in typical liberal fashion.

What’s all this chatter about stepping down. Mendezezezez has stepped up.
He’s a rock star in the fat basturds state.
First he gets applause for hiring unionized hookers in the DR and then its learned he is equal opportunity and prefers guys as much a gals! what a guy!
And no age discrimination for our NJ Senator!! He’s a class act. Why he could run for President challenging Hillary. He may be a bigger bull than her.

a Democratic “super PAC” set up by former aides to Mr. Reid. Majority PAC ended up shoveling $582,500 to Mr. Menendez’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Isn’t this pretty similar to what Delay was convicted for – using a third party to get around campaign donation caps?

They said a political action committee that DeLay started in Texas solicited $190,000 from corporate interests and sent it to an arm of the Republican National Committee. They said that group then distributed the money to seven legislative candidates in an effort to skirt Texas law, which forbids corporate contributions to political campaigns.

They said a political action committee that DeLay started in Texas solicited $190,000 from corporate interests and sent it to an arm of the Republican National Committee. They said that group then distributed the money to seven legislative candidates in an effort to skirt Texas law, which forbids corporate contributions to political campaigns.

Oh dear, how will the Democrats “message” this to their precious illegals once they’ve thrown their token (non-Spanish speaking) latino senator over the side?
Dust off the Evil Republicans playbook–not that it ever gathers dust.

Somehow, the federal government gave themselves jurisdiction over the entire planet and passed a law that forbade someone from having sex with someone under 18 overseas (even if it was legal in that country.) Notwithstanding that many US states have an age of consent of 16, that is still the law of the land.

If one of us had underage foreign prostitutes claiming we hired them when they were 16, you can bet we’d already be in jail.

Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe for a second that the NYT wrote this without the request and approval of someone in the party. He’s stinking up the bus and they want to throw him under it before things get really ripe.